Review of Vertigo (1958)



Review of Vertigo



Vertigo is a 1958 film, directed and written by Alfred Hitchcock at the peak of his career. This came out at a similar time to some of his other most well-known and most loved classics such as Rear Window, North by Northwest and Psycho, and yet it still manages to stand out to me as his best, and I'm not alone in thinking this, not only is it considered the greatest film ever made in the BFI's critics poll but it is also 9th in a similar list by the AFI. Personally, it is my third favourite film, behind only Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror. 

Hitchcock is known as being "The Master of Suspense" by many and this film is no exception, but also feels like it makes more changes to Hitchcock's formula than all other films by him that I've seen. It contains all of the suspense and style of his previous films that he is known for, including conventions of the film noir being released at this time, which includes a morally grey protagonist. a femme fatale and a complicated mystery that spirals out of control. Despite sharing these plot conventions, Vertigo has a dream-like quality due to it's vibrant colour palette and how absurd the plot feels at times, especially in the third act. From the beginning, it is about a retired detective who is asked to follow someone's wife as he suspects she may be possessed, from this point the plot begins got slowly spiral out of control, giving the audience a sense of "vertigo". 

It is based on the French novel from 1954, D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac. French director Francois Truffaut of The 400 Blows claimed that the book was written for Hitchcock to adapt but Nardejac denies this, and claims that the Greek myth Orpheus was a source of inspiration. 

Vertigo's title contains a lot of symbolic meaning throughout the film, with both obvious symbolism to hint at this such as characters falling as well as a sense of disorientation and lose control, almost giving a hypnotic sense of falling with the main character. There is a lot of "falling" in Vertigo, both literal and metaphorical, there is literal falling as well as the protagonist falling in love, falling into madness, falling from grace, There is also a lot of imagery of spiralling in Vertigo, expressionist painters viewed spirals as representative of chaos and disorder, which is given off strongly from the film; spirals also connote hypnotism and this falling feeling that the film gives off can also feel hypnotic, an example of this is a scene early on in the film in which Scottie is watching Madeline in the art gallery and the camera zooms into her hair, where a tightly wound bun mimics a spiral. 

This also feels like Hitchcock's most personal film. He was and still is criticised for his treatment of actresses, and the second half of this film focuses on Scottie's obsession for perfection, more specifically, his fixation on Madeline, which eventually takes control of him and drives him insane, drastically changing his personality for the worse. Here he could be addressing and acknowledging his treatment of actresses on set, giving the film a deeper layer of disturbingness, as there could be a reality behind some of the plot. 

Vertigo uses colour in a very interesting way. Red represents Scottie, his clothing, the colour of his door and his furniture are all red. However Madeline is represented by the colour on the opposite side of the colour wheel- green, her dress when we are first introduced to her is green, her car is green, even the sea she throws herself into to be saved by Scottie near the opening of the film is greenish. After Scottie saves her and takes her back to his apartment, he is wearing a green sweater, as he has fallen in love with her. When she wakes up, he hands her a red robe to put on, claiming her metaphorically. Midge, Scottie's ex-fiance, is represented by yellow, but occasionally wears red to get the attention of Scottie. The colour in this film is used to convey the themes of identity, love, and how these things can cause us to lose a grip on reality.

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